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News 19 March 2004
Mainstream are delighted to have acquired world rights to TRAVELS WITH EMIGRANTS by James Hunter to be published in October 2005. It breaks new ground by taking a particular set of emigrants of Scotland, by the name of MacLeod, and - with the help of their descendants - finding out exactly what happened to them. These people began as Scots. They became, among other things, French aristocrats, Polish resistance fighters and revolutionaries, Irish priests, Texan ranchers, New Zealand shepherds, Australian gold miners, prairie homesteaders, Aboriginal and African-American activists, Canadian mounted policemen, Confederate rebels, Nova Scotia farmers - one nineteenth century MacLeod going so far as to swap his Gaelic for Arabic and his Christianity for Islam, before settling down comfortably in Cairo. This account of Scotland's worldwide diaspora is based on unpublished documents, letters and family histories. It is based too on the author's international travels in the company of today's MacLeods. It includes interviews with descendants now resident in the US, Australia, Canada, Poland, France, New Zealand and South Africa. James Hunter is the author of the acclaimed books, LAST OF THE FREE, A DANCE CALLED AMERICA and GLENCOE AND THE INDIANS. World rights are available. For further information contact fiona.brownlee@mainstreampublishing.com
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The London Book Fair was a great success. Books which generated an enormous amount of interest were TERROR TRACKER by award winning 'cyber journalist' Neil Doyle which looks as though it will be sold on synopsis and DANCING IN THE SEA for which we have already received an offer. Authors, Cameron White (MR NASTY), Carolyn Soutar (THE REAL NUREYEV) and Elizabeth Gabriel (FLYING CROOKED) attended Monday's Isle of Arran drinks reception on our stand and went on to the official Author party.
The
London Book Fair coincided with the appearance of a Mainstream
book in the Sunday Times Top Ten for the first time since CATCH
ME IF YOU CAN last year. SOLDIER FIVE has
received blanket media coverage including some wonderful reviews.
The trade have been equally enthusiastic and the book has been
selling well which resulted in its appearance at No.7 in the Sunday
Times list at the weekend.
Media attention looks set to continue. Mike Coburn has been required to defend himself and his publication, Soldier Five, from MoD mandarins in a New Zealand court once again. The British Government is moving to enforce its 'account of profits' clause as per the confidentiality contract Coburn was forced to sign in 1996. This action is intended to ensure that any profit Coburn makes from Soldier Five is able to be seized by the MoD for breach of contract and in turn, this also means that Coburn's desire to distribute profits from sales of the book to the families of those who died on the ill-fated Bravo Two Zero patrol will come to nothing.
This legal action by the Government is an invasion of civil liberties. I would have thought the MoD, in view of recent tragic events regarding Dr David Kelly, might have dealt with this more sympathetically. This amounts to cynical revenge. The Government is saying 'We have lost the battle of civil liberties but you will suffer economically. It's a bloody-minded approach, which is not doing the MoD, the British Government or the Armed Forces any favours'
Bill Campbell, Director, Mainstream Publishing
The Government's 5 year battle to prevent the publication of Soldier
Five, estimated to have cost in the region of £7m, has continued
regardless of merit and in a manner that defies logic. Tony Blair
stated when defending the War in Iraq in part 'The spread of freedom
is the best security of the free...' Coburn argues that the last
five years of litigation have been about the British Government
suppressing those very freedoms that Mr Blair has so passionately
apparently tried to defend.
Mike Coburn has already been booked on to BBC Radio 4 and Sky TV
Other
publicity news. A review of WITH FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES will
appear in the Daily Mail on Friday, 19 March and NATURAL
BORN FIGHTERS will be reviewed by Alan Hubbard in the
Independent on Sunday at the beginning of April.
And Finally...
A photograph of the long awaited Campbell / Atherton baby! Grace Olivia Atherton Campbell entered the world on the morning of Saturday March 13th.
The same weekend a Mainstream book entered the bestseller list.
What a great Mainstream mascot Grace has turned out to be already!